ZVO consultation hour on regulatory developments
At the ZVO Surface Days 2025, the ZVO Environment and Chemicals Policy Department will once again be hosting a consultation session on regulatory developments in European and national environmental and chemicals policy: Users ask, experts answer.
As part of the consultation hour, which has become established at the ZVO Surface Days, the sealing of hard anodized coatings without perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl compounds (PFAS) will also be discussed in a presentation. The term PFAS covers several thousand chemical compounds that pose a risk to living organisms and the environment due to their longevity. For this reason, a draft ban was published some time ago for this group of substances, also known as perpetuity chemicals, which is currently still being evaluated by the ECHA. Regardless of the still pending legal regulation in Europe, there are already regional bans worldwide, which is why there is an urgent need for alternative solutions.
Search for PFAS substitutes
In the search for potential substitutes, a sealant based on an organic polymer with silane groups was selected, which in direct comparison to the previous solution even partially exceeds the functional properties. Various alternatives are presented in the article and the results on the properties such as coating characteristics, coefficient of friction, corrosion or contact angle of the selected sealant are presented in more detail. The focus of the application is on the sealing of hard anodized layers, but in principle other metallic materials and sub-layers can also be sealed.